RÜFÜS DU SOL sell out 50,000 tickets to LA show in minutes

RÜFÜS DU SOL has been doing serious box office business in the United States.

Last week they sold all 50,000 tickets in a matter of minutes for their November 12 and 13 shows at Los Angeles’ Banc of California Stadium.

“Thank you, Los Angeles – we’re blown away,” Tyrone Lindqvist, Jon George and James Hunt tweeted. And after comments on social media from fans who missed out, they released 25,000 more tickets for a third show on November 14.

California has always been a hotspot for the Sydney band. In December 2016, their show at LA’s Wiltern Theatre saw them lauded by local media as “ones to watch”.

They came back for two Coachella festivals, the first one in 2019 which saw the three walk off stage exclaiming to each other “That was magical!” and which they still regard as one of their stand-out performances.

There were three shows at The Shrine Expo Hall, and their biggest headliner in that city, before 20,500 at the open-air LA State Historic Park in October 2019.

That was the final gig of a 32-date US tour in the wake of the success of their SOLACE album.

This time around, the Banc of California Stadium is the chance to hear new studio material.

In the last 12 months, the three spent the pandemic lockdown between their adopted home of LA and The Joshua Tree park working on new material.

They had originally gone for a two-day writing trip, and fell under the magic of the desert.

They returned there in September 2019 with a film crew to livestream a 45-minute sunrise set of lesser-known album tracks – and which eventually was released as Live From Joshua Tree in the first quarter of 2020.

Sunset is the time that RÜFÜS DU SOL request when playing festivals.

“It’s the most immersive for a light show,” Lindqvist has explained. “There’s something magical that happens with the crowd when you go from daytime and you shift into nighttime.

“They get wild, it’s like a longer journey too. It might only be 40 minutes, or an hour … but they transition with you.”

For November’s three nights, they are joined by Flight Facilities, and Lightning in a Bottle’s producers Do LaB to bring their immersive installation work to the event.